Tax Tips for photographers

Tax Tips for photographers – I have a special interest in photography. Not because I take photographs, but because my husband is a photographer. I also work with a number of photography businesses and so have some accounting and tax expertise in this industry.

So here are a few tax tips and problem areas explained:

• Equipment – Are you making the most of your annual investment allowance? This is increased to £250,000 from 1 January 2013 following the announcement in the Autumn statement, so tax relief is available on the full spend. That should cover all the equipment you’re likely to buy! Make sure you deal with equipment that you’ve first used in a personal capacity correctly if you’re starting out.

• Vat on photo-books – Are you getting the VAT right? Photo-books are zero-rated for vat. This means that no vat should be charged if you purchase photo-books  If you are providing a service which includes photography and a book as part of the package, then the whole lot is vatable if you are a vat registered business. If you just supply a book, maybe as an extra order, then this would be zero-rated. It’s simple isn’t it!

• Income – Are you including the right amount in the right year? What do you do about deposits received in one accounting year, for a job that’s taking place next year? What happens if you’ve been paid and done the shoot, but the final album/prints haven’t been ordered by the year end? Not such an easy one, as there’s more than one way of treating such things, but you should make sure your income is matched to the expenses and this is all adjusted for in the same accounting year. This could make a difference to your tax bill if there’s a big gap between when the two happen.

• Training – When is training allowable for tax, and when is it not? You may think if training or a course helps you do your job better then it’s allowable. Unfortunately this is one of those areas where things aren’t necessarily so simple. You need to be updating existing knowledge and expertise rather than learning a new skill to get the tax relief.

We can tailor our advice to your particular circumstances and make sure the treatment is as favourable as it can be. Why not get in touch?

By Tracey Kelk